This is Kentaro Okuda, Group CEO of Nomura. Thank you very much for joining the Nomura Investment Forum 2022. This year, the event is being held in a hybrid format with on-site meetings and online meetings for the first time in three years. It's great to be able to meet investors face to face. Thank you very much for your participation. With that, I would like to move on to Nomura's presentation. First, I explained in the Nomura Investor Day in May this year that there's a paradigm shift taking place around us, and we are in the midst of that shift. The low interest rates, low inflation, which are the market assumptions that had been in place for years, has changed drastically over the past year.
Central banks around the world have responded to runaway inflation by raising interest rates one after another, quite significantly. In June this year, the FRB began to taper shrinking its balance sheet. The peak of inflation is yet to be seen, the policy rate is expected to continue to rise for a while next year onwards. Asset prices are being corrected with higher volatility in bonds and stocks, causing their prices to fall in anticipation of a future recession. The correction phase is ongoing at the moment. This slide shows Nomura's results on a half year basis. The pre-tax income for the three segments for the first half of this year was down 46% year-on-year. Recurring revenue and asset management business, which are stable sources of revenue, remained relatively strong. Fixed income saw strong macro products due to higher volatility in rates and FX.
On the other hand, with the changes in the market environment, the sentiment of retail investors has been affected and issuers are much less willing to raise money. Since the announcement of our first half results, we got a lot of questions from investors. In particular, there was strong interest in the ROE and whether it's going to recover and stabilize. Also we got questions about how to recover our top line in our core business, as well as cost control. Those were the areas of interest. Today, I would like to zoom in terms of the subjects that I will talk about. First, our efforts to improve the profitability of retail.
I will explain how we plan to expand our business, and as a result, how we will benefit from strengthening the segment approach, which we are currently working on, as well as the status of our alliances with regional banks. I will also talk about the review of the cost structure of the Retail Division. The second point is about our efforts to stabilize and grow the performance of our Wholesale Division. This October, we appointed Christopher Willcox as Head of the Wholesale Division. I will talk about how we can stabilize and grow our business going forward with the new leadership in place. Regarding Investment Management, today I will focus on the expansion of our alternative product offering, which is being promoted under the initiative of expansion and enhancement of private domain in addition to public. It'll just be a brief introduction today.
I'll also briefly touch on digital initiatives. There are two sides to digital. First is developing internal platforms and upgrading the systems. Number two is working on digital assets as a business area. Lastly, I will talk about the effectiveness of our board and the engagement of employees, which is a priority for the Nomura management team. Let's talk about our first initiative, which is improving retail profitability. In retail, we have been transforming our business model. We made a shift towards the asset consulting business model with a mid to long-term perspective in order to properly address the needs of each client and provide the right advice. While at the same time, we have expanded our service offering to include advice on inheritance and real estate, as well as business succession needs. We are starting to see the results of these efforts already.
Recurring assets, mainly investment trusts and discretionary investment services, have been building up steadily, and recurring revenue has grown to over JPY 130 billion per year. There has also been growth in consulting revenues, including business succession, M&A, inheritance-related services, including insurance, and real estate-related services. Recurring revenue, which is one of our key metrics, has been steadily increasing. On the other hand, with respective flow revenue, I believe that the uncertain market environment may have led to a weakening in investor sentiment. On the other hand, maybe we could have done better to meet the needs of our clients in our proposals. We are now working to make further improvements. Our clients' needs vary greatly across the different segments. Wealth management is a highly competitive area where each player is trying to expand its services.
We believe that the combination of the diverse expertise within the Nomura Group will enable us to meet demand and provide added value that exceeds the expectations of our clients. For startup founders, which are the high net worth individuals of the future, we are closely collaborating between investment banking, which handles corporate clients for IPOs, and wealth management, which handles individuals in order to provide high value-added services. Corporates and owners have significant needs, not only for asset preservation and investing, but also for business succession, as well as in their core businesses. It's not just about asset preservation and investing. In order to address these multiple needs, we will be focusing on the face-to-face strategy that's quite effective.
In addition to share expertise, we will consolidate our sales partners in Tokyo, Nagoya, and Osaka into one organization and further strengthen the collaboration within the group, including investment banking and global markets. The high net worth segment is a volume zone in terms of our revenue, and we plan to expand our business further by adding head count to this area. By expanding the number of high quality personnel capable of providing high added value, we will not only expand volume, but also improve the productivity of each employee, leading to higher revenue. As for the mass affluent clients, many of them have jobs, and these customers tend to seek quick and accurate advice, especially in asset building and life planning. This is where the use of digital can really come into play.
We will focus on providing asset management advice through online consultations, as well as consulting on life planning and retirement fund asset management. Approaching next generations and future customers is also important. Currently, 40% of companies listed in Japan that have employee stock ownership programs are Nomura clients with which we have administrative outsourcing agreements. As of September end, the number of workplace services provided, which is a new KPI from this fiscal year, was 3.45 million accounts, and we are on track to meet our target of 3.66 million. Out of these 3.45 million accounts, we will identify retirees who have a certain amount of financial assets and provide convenient services digitally by managing retirement and other financial assets and providing life planning services to them.
Regarding the employee stock ownership program, this is an area of strength of Nomura, our peers are suspending their services. This will be an area of focus for Nomura, and we want these clients to become loyal customers to Nomura. Each retired person has different needs, and efficiency, productivity are of course important, but we also need to provide private and customized services. At the same time, we will further work on increasing the number of clients to which we provide workplace services or services for salaried employees. We'll strengthen the collaboration between investment banking, which covers relationships with companies, and the investment management division, which provides investment products to win new mandates. We can only reach a limited number of customers on our own.
We have branches in each prefecture of Japan, but we only have 50 - 100 people in each branch, so it's quite hard to scale the business further. We have started a new framework with San-in Godo Bank from September 2020 and Awa Bank from April 2021. This comprehensive partnership is only two years old, but we are already seeing immediate results in terms of opening new accounts and increased new money, which is faster than expected. As originally planned, we are achieving synergies by combining the strong customer base of regional banks with Nomura's ability to provide products and services. The assets in custody, as you can see here, is steadily increasing.
I visited the branches or the locations in person and spoke with the members, but the atmosphere was so cheerful and lively, and it was really nice to see the employees working energetically and vividly with the regional bank staff. I am looking forward to more positive results from this business. We have announced our alliance with Oita Bank and also Fukui Bank. Through these alliances, we hope to contribute even more to the development of regional economies, as well as financial and economic education. Lastly, about the costs of the retail division. Under the Head of Retail and our CFO, Kitamura-san, who is with us, we started a new project with an aim to promote business strategies in each segment and create an optimal balance of revenue and costs.
In terms of costs, we identified room for a total reduction of about JPY 20 billion, including the control of personal expenses through enhancing pay for performance, sharing common infrastructure within the group, and reduction of IT expenses and optimizing SG&A. We will improve our cost flexibility so that we can maintain a certain level of pre-tax income, even if the revenue levels in this first half continue. By the way, this is not just about lowering personnel expenses. We cannot meet the needs of our retail clients without a high degree of expertise. Pay for performance means we properly reward employees who are achievers with high levels of expertise. Now, moving on to my second point, the wholesale business.
The Wholesale Division restructured its business platform in 2019 with the aim of strengthening its global franchise by concentrating management resources in areas in which it has expertise. As a result, we now have core products in each region with high market share and a range of core products. For example, we have a 8.3% share of the people in U.S. agency bond trading, 12.5% share of U.S. listed options, and 10.8% of the U.S. mortgage business.
We've steadily increased our market presence in all of these areas compared to six years ago. Although the performance of each product varies depending on the market environment, in the first half of this fiscal year, we were able to maintain revenue growth through the diversification of our portfolio with fixed income macro products such as FX, emerging, and rates, and absorbing the revenue decline in financing and securitization. Fixed income is a business that is sensitive to market fluctuations. To this end, we have restructured the franchise to focus on providing global liquidity and thorough risk management while concentrating our management resources on competitive core products and rebuilding our franchise. Today, the business has become much more muscular that is second only to large U.S. financial institutions in terms of market share and efficiency with sustained returns, and we are now ready to capture market upside when necessary.
Recently, with the heightened volatility, macro products such as rates and FX are doing well. If interest rates peak next year, we should see a pickup in activity in securitization and other financing businesses. Investment banking has been able to grow its advisory revenues despite a decline in financing deals. This is thanks to our efforts to strengthen the sustainability business, especially Nomura Greentech, which we acquired. Furthermore, in April of this year, we established GII, Greentech Industrials & Infrastructure, with 150 bankers to develop the Greentech business model globally. Led by the globally coordinated GII team, we will work to strengthen our presence and market share by supporting our clients' growth strategies for decarbonization and other initiatives.
Furthermore, we will assess our profitability and future potential, invest intensively in areas where we have competitive strengths, and make decisions quickly to review our strategy, including cost cutting if necessary.
On the profitability of the overseas wholesale business, this is a frequently asked question. Let us take a look at profitability. Pre-tax income for overseas disclosed in our financial statements are based on firm-wide financials, including legal expenses on past litigations and fair value gains and losses of overseas investments, which makes it difficult to track underlying profitability of overseas wholesale. The graph you are looking at shows the changes in pre-tax income for overseas wholesale and Americas Wholesale. Here, we have adjusted goodwill impairment in 2019, and losses and gains on U.S. client transaction in March 2021. Our efforts to date have improved our underlying earning power and cost structure. We have remained profitable since 2017. The Americas have been the driving force behind this improvement.
In addition to our strength in fixed income and equity derivatives, we have selected and expanded the necessary functions. As a result, the ability of Wholesale Americas to generate profits has improved. We see our wholesale platform as having the power to make sure we capture revenue opportunities when the market moves. We aim not only to maintain this strength, but also to improve the quality of our products. We are working to strengthen these three key areas for revenue growth in wholesale. Wholesale business is committed to diversifying and stabilizing its revenue sources. The scatter plot graph on the left is conceptual. Upper right direction indicates a business with stable revenues and light regulatory capital burdens, while the lower left direction indicates cyclical business with a heavy capital burdens. The size of the circle represents the size of the revenue.
To further enhance the return and stability of the portfolio and build a business foundation that is less sensitive to external conditions, we need to increase the revenue contribution from equity, advisory, and wealth management businesses. What's important in these businesses is to increase the productivity of bankers and RMs and realize return on investment at the earliest possible timing. We will dynamically reallocate capital to improve capital efficiency in areas with relatively stable earnings and growth prospects, such as private markets on the lower right. By strengthening each area, we aim to build well-diversified business portfolio and stabilize revenue. Investments and cost control in wholesale.
In order to achieve an expense ratio of around 80%, we are working to achieve top-line growth and stabilization as mentioned, while at the same time strengthening the monitoring of investments and making expenses variable, reducing fixed costs, and continuously reviewing the business portfolio. Under the leadership of Christopher Willcox, the newly appointed Head of the Division, we will continue to make strategic investments in areas that could serve as a foundation for creating added value while increasing efficiency through more thorough pay for performance, more flexible staffing, and a review of low-margin businesses. As I mentioned at the beginning, to this point, I have focused on retail and wholesale, in areas where frequent questions are received. I would also like to briefly mention the recent expansion of product offerings and digital initiatives in investment managing using one slide for each of those topics.
In order to provide diverse investment opportunities for a wide range of investors, the investment management division is expanding its alternative asset management products as shown on this slide. In May of this year, we announced the acquisition of shares in New Forests, the world's second-largest and Asia Oceania's largest forest asset management company. Forest resource assets are attracting attention for their ability to absorb greenhouse gases and carbon dioxide. The total amount of forest assets managed by the company as of the end of June was AUD 8.7 billion, and the total area of assets is 1.1 million hectares, about 5x of that of Tokyo. In August of this year, we established Nomura Real Asset Investment, an asset management company to jointly manage real estate funds with Nomura Real Estate Group.
Leveraging our broad client base and Nomura Real Estate's experience and track record in real estate fund management, the company plans to develop real estate fund businesses, including the commercialization of new asset class products. Over the past 10 years, major changes in finance have been driven by progress in digital technology, and in the next 10 years, with the new technologies such as AI and blockchain, we shall experience even greater changes. Leveraging digital is essential to delivering new values. As I said at the beginning, our digital efforts are twofold. First, updating our digital infrastructure as a platform. We are also working to speedily strengthen our human resources to support this initiative. For example, in October, we hired an experienced group CIO, who has previously served as a CIO in an overseas company.
I hope he will examine our IT system from a global perspective and bring it closer to global standards without being bound by what is considered as common sense today or common sense in Japan. We will also strengthen our response to cybersecurity, which is a major priority for financial institutions. Second initiative to promote business opportunities, areas such as efficient marketing using digital, non-face-to-face approaches, and user-friendliness of services through the web and apps have strong affinity with mass affluent business. The digital company and retail division work will work closely together to develop services that are easier for customers to use. Furthermore, we will work to improve the UI/UX of totally digitalized services that do not involve any human intervention. In October, we established a new company, Laser Digital, in Switzerland to provide services related to digital assets.
The company will collaborate with Komainu and other entities that have been engaged in this area for some time to capture new business opportunities. As a non-traditional funding solution, SDO deals are also on the rise. For example, in June this year, when the Japan Exchange Group issued Japan's first digitally based environmental bonds in the Green Digital Track Bond , Nomura Securities supported the issuance, while the subsidiary BOOSTRY is engaged in the operations of the system. I also would like to discuss the increased effectiveness of the board of directors and employee engagement. Since assuming the position of Group CEO, I have engaged in exchange of views on optimizing governance in line with our global business development. In 2020, a third-party evaluation of the effectiveness of the board of directors was conducted for an overall review.
Through such process, we identified a few issues, such as many of the members on the board being Japanese and only few with financial backgrounds despite Nomura's business globalization. Recognizing these challenges following the 2021 general meeting of shareholders, we have developed a governance structure that reflects the current state of our business with the addition of an outside director with experience in managing Japanese companies and three non-Japanese outside directors who have expertise on financial sectors of other countries, the macroeconomy, and the regulatory environment. Of the 12, eight are outside, and of them, four are non-Japanese. The non-Japanese BoD member is the SEC acting chairman, who used to be Victor Chu and CFTC former chair, and Patricia was with FIRB for a long period of time, currently based in Colombia.
They have a wealth of financial expertise who are members of the BoD. They give us practical advice as well. In terms of the revitalization of the BoD, quality and quantity of discussions have changed. In particular, there was a significant increase in global macro environment events and global risks. Since late last year, I was asked by non-Japanese board of directors to name a few risks for Nomura. Back then, we were banned from traveling overseas. They thought that I don't understand because I stayed in Japan. Overseas inflation was rising. Rate going up. It was about JPY 105 or JPY 106 to the dollar back then. They already gave us advice that we ought to be prepared to the yen depreciating to JPY 140.
This was a Japanese director, but this director suggested we have to be well prepared for cyberattacks. That had led to a review of our response against possible cyberattacks. Before the event actually occurs, we took measures in advance to enhance our preparedness. I myself, not just me, but a few executives of Nomura and including non-Japanese board members, I have at least one meeting per week to discuss individually with these members to talk about the challenges with internal and outside board members to receive advice based upon their expertise. We've been engaged in extremely candid exchange of views. These are constructive conversations. I very much value such advice and suggestions from the members of the board. I intend to apply them in the management policy.
In terms of engagement of our employees, yes, we are engaged in differentiation through digitalization, but, ahead the keys would be people and content, it is in fact people who create content. The source of Nomura's strength is nothing but people. As top management, therefore, I am strongly committed to employee engagement. We've been conducting annual employee surveys since 2020. The third survey, which was done in July this year, achieved a response rate of as high as close to 90%. In comparison, in global comparison, this is a high response rate. There was also an open-ended question, the average is around 35% in terms of response rate to these questions.
In the case of Nomura, when asked the question, "What actions will Nomura Group take to become a better organization?" We received a response rate of as high as 55%. About 80% of employees responded favorably to questions about the direction of the company. When we look at the causal relationship for each question, I've been encouraging them to change the way of doing business or challenging new goals. This kind of perception regarding challenge and transformation have a very strong causal relationship with engagement, as research proves. These employees are constantly taking on new challenges by thinking and acting to develop themselves and improve the organization.
To encourage employees who are eager to take on challenges, in addition to company-led reassignments, we are expanding our internal recruitment system to encourage employees to voluntarily develop their careers. The number of applications has increased 4.6x in the recent years, and the number of hires has increased 8.3x , which we believe is a good system for both hiring departments and employees to reduce mismatches in work and career plans. We have a system in place where employees can choose the career path of their desire. As part of a project to celebrate Nomura's 100-year anniversary in 2025, a team was set up in July last year to discuss the group's purpose, and many Nomura employees have participated in the discussions. This is not just about renewing or creating slogans.
I believe that it is important for globally diverse members to enjoy discussions based upon their own purpose that expand the circle of communication across the group and for them to feel accepted as they are. We have half of our employees are Japanese, half are non-Japanese, this is a very important endeavor. I want the employees to feel that they are accepted by being themselves by their team. When young employees leave, at exit interviews, they've responded they want to leave Nomura because they want a new life. They wanted to work for a startup, I thought it would be useful to create such opportunities for Nomura employees that have been retained. We began an internal call for employees to be transferred to startups and venture companies while contributing as team member in a venture company for approximately one year.
The purpose of this program is to learn skills such as strategy planning, project promotion, and business management. They don't always become CFOs just because they're from Nomura. This year, in the first year, we have five people seconded to startups. The other day, there was a party to gather them together. They said it was an opportunity to think about how to utilize limited internal resources in an organization which is much smaller than Nomura or experiencing the speed at a start. Opened my eyes regarding the low speed of Nomura. That was a good learning. I intend to offer more opportunities to our employees to go for such challenges and for them to grow so that we can foster the next generation of leaders.
We will continue investment into human resources, and I am strongly committed to employees who want to challenge new dreams. No doubt, that is going to be the driver for sustainable growth of Nomura. Our diverse business as a group are built on the trust of our clients and other stakeholders. We believe that improving enterprise value of our company and the sustainable growth of the society at large are on the same path. We will continue our efforts to achieve sustainable growth. I solicit your deep understanding and kind cooperation. Again, thank you for your kind attention.
Thank you, Mr. Okuda. We will now take your questions. Those of you with us here in the room, if you would like to ask a question, please raise your hand, and we will assign you and hand you the microphone. Those of you joining online, please send in a text from the designated website, and we will read out your questions. There is no need for you to name your affiliation and name when you ask a question. We would like to limit the number of questions to two per person to allow as many questions as possible. The first question has come online, which I would like to read out. First, last year, in terms of the penetration of conduct at Nomura, has there been progress made so far after that? Do you have any examples of...?
Explain how the conduct has been spread and penetrated within Nomura?
Yes. Thank you. This is Kitamura. Thank you for your question. In terms of conduct, we have the Nomura's 5 YES, which we have thoroughly implemented to all of our employees. We also have the code of conduct. Every year, we are renewing the code of conduct. It's not a full renewal, we make adjustments to it depending on the timing and also the themes at the time. Each branch and departments are doing study sessions to deepen their understanding about conduct. Through these initiatives, as Okuda-san said earlier, we have the employee survey. I don't have the data with me at the moment, we have seen an improvement in the awareness towards conduct. The scoring has improved. Thank you.
Yes, this is Okuda. Conduct is a never-ending initiative. Every spring and autumn, we have the SMD meeting with all the branch meet managers and department managers, and we have the senior managing directors come from all over the world. Every time, we talk about the conduct of Nomura, and we engage in discussions about conduct. I, myself, as the senior management, I think it's very important to send the tone from the top and send a message to the organization. This will be an ongoing effort. Thank you.
The next question will be read by the moderator, which was submitted on the web.
It's a related question. You are injecting efforts into engagement of your employees, which is applaudable, and the survey results are wonderful. Can you give us examples of actual cases of these results leading to actual business opportunities or these results leading to business opportunities?
This is Okuda speaking. As we promote engagement to each individual, we always ask them to name a few goals for the particular year. In this year's engagement, many of them said they want to establish new challenges. People who work in branches in Japan or overseas branches, some answer they want to make the company a better company or to contribute more to their clients' happiness. I get the feeling that they are trying to improve the situation, and there are some proposals that could become proposals to the clients, or some of them responded that they want to host festivals for the local city that they serve to. Is this leading to expanded revenues just because these ideas pop up through this engagement survey?
Not really, but the high level of interest of our employees leading to enthusiasm is something that we truly appreciate as top management.
Thank you. Do we have any questions from the floor?
Thank you. I would just like to ask, what's the dividend policy of Nomura moving forward?
Yes, this is Kitamura. Thank you for your question. We have officially been saying that our dividend policy is to use 30%- 30% as one benchmark or metric. Aside from that, as for the total payout ratio including share buybacks, we use 50% or above. Yes, we have been saying that from the past. Regarding this 30%- 50%, this, we are not necessarily always bound by this. We have many shareholders, and our mission is to meet the expectations of the shareholders. For example, in the first half of this year, the dividend payout ratio was 80%, extremely high. Our aim is to meet the expectations of our shareholders as much as possible and pay out or focus on shareholder return, including dividends.
Over the past few years, there has been litigations and some losses from our legacy businesses, and we have been having to make some adjustments to accommodate that or address that. We will continue to pay out the right level of dividends, based on our dividend policy and also based on the environment and circumstances at the time. Thank you.
Thank you. The person on the second row, please.
Thank you. Thank you very much for your presentation. It's a bit of a long question, but I believe you are uniquely capable of potentially addressing it. My understanding in speaking with some of your peers in the asset management and brokerage industry is you try to attract more customers who will invest in stocks, bonds in Japan, as opposed to having so much of their assets in deposits at banks that will help the country in many different ways over time. However, my understanding is that while Japanese society in general is fairly conservative and very long-term focused, Japanese investors seem to be the opposite, very short-term focused, very momentum-driven.
An example, the last several years I have heard many Japanese investors have loaded up on growth stocks that today are very much out of favor, it results in a cycle where investors get very discouraged about investing in Japanese companies because they always seem to buy at the top and sell at the bottom. This has been going on for a very long time, and you have many of your own clients doing this. My first question is, do you agree with what I'm saying? If you do, can you do something to help change that mentality within Japanese investors? Thank you so much.
Thank you very much. Thank you very much for your question. I agree and disagree on your opinion that first of all, that how to attract Japanese investors and also how to move the, shift the money from the banking account to the investment account is the key for us. That's still very, I mean, a huge amount of the money is still in banking account, though the interest rate is negative. That's the situation. How to attract people and how to shift their mindset changing, that's very important for, I think, this society. Also that how to make the chain of the money from the investors throughout the private sectors and public sectors. That's the circle is very important. But one...
Why I said disagree is, as the broker or the investment banks, we are not just advising to make investment into Japanese public securities or the Japanese asset. We are now offering the global or a multi-asset to the investors. That's a little bit different from your opinion. For example, if I visit our local branches, I'm always asking to my sales team what the discussion with the clients. Two years ago, most of the case they are discussing about U.S. opportunity because Japanese equity was like this for 20 years. That type of things. That we are of course trying to shift the mindset of the investors and to shift the money from the banking account to the investment account. However, we are not just, I mean, not advising to make investment into Japanese asset.
That's the, I think. However, that you are thinking and saying is, I think, very much in line with our understanding. Am I answering to your question?
Even that seems to be saying, "Okay, you know, U.S. stocks have done very well, invest more in U.S. stocks and not in Japanese stocks." That also creates this sort of highly volatile momentum driven type of investing, which will discourage investors from continuing to do that.
Difficult question [crosstalk]. Maybe no answer.
Thank you very much.
Okay. Any other questions from the floor? Okay, we have one more questions online. Regarding the cost, on a global basis and when compared with your peers, the cost ratio is quite high. Do you have any target in mind?
Thank you. This is Kitamura. Thank you for your question. As you point out, yes, the cost income ratio is a key metric that we focus on. At the moment, the cost income ratio for wholesale is 90%, extremely high. One reason is the level of expenses, also with the current market environment, the top line has been somewhat weak as well. For wholesale, with Chris Willcox, the new head, and the headquarters or the finance team will work on lowering costs. The target for wholesale is 80% cost income ratio.
At the moment, we also have quite a high cost level at the firm-wide level as well. As Okuda-san said earlier, we have plans to improve earnings in retail and change the earnings structure, and that should help improve the cost structure of retail. Going forward, we have wholesale investment management and retail are three business lines, and we will be targeting 73% as the cost income ratio for these three business lines. This is the level that we explained in May in the Nomura Investor Day by Okuda-san. Thank you.
The next question is also from the web. After Okuda-san became CEO, digital initiatives and steps have been taken for the next stage of growth. If these policies are implemented and growth is realized, what would be the presence? What kind of presence will Nomura have in the society at large as a company?
This is Okuda speaking. In the global context, what's the ranking? We're not so worried about that, but as I always say, to contribute to the society's sustainable growth, that's the kind of company we want to become, and our biggest priority is for Japan and the world to be well connected. We see East and West, but bridging the East and West. Another priority for me personally is 27,000 employees on global basis contribute to Nomura, and I want them, each and every one of them, to be excited as they wake up every morning and go to work. Of course, ROE what percent , we have numerics which we share with the public, but those are the concepts behind those numeric targets.
Thank you. Any final questions from the floor? Okay, with that, we have one more question online.
In Japan, this shift from savings to investments, the regional financial institutions do not have the capabilities to support investments, not necessarily anyway. In that sense, your alliance with the regional banks, I think there's an opportunity to accelerate that initiative. Please talk about how you plan to accelerate the alliance with regional banks.
Thank you for your question. We have already started with two regional banks, and we will be adding Oita and Fukui Bank, totaling four regional banks that we work with. We will focus on our current initiatives, and once we start achieving results, other regional banks will start to want to join this alliance. The partnership may differ by each bank, but yes, we will continue to focus on the partnership and alliance with regional financial institutions. Thank you.
Thank you. Next question, and again, this question is through the web. U.S. financial sector and macroeconomy regulatory areas, your new BoD members have expertise in such areas. What kind of suggestions and comments do they have with regards to Nomura's Americas business and strategy for the Americas?
In that case, executives and non-executives are clearly separated in the governance structure that we have in place.
Based upon that structure, the outside directors, and especially the three based in the United States, are focused on clients, and they know that there's demand for the U.S . Market amongst our clients, and they are granting us extremely effective and valuable advice from such perspective. They support us, and they also criticize us.
The next question. Any questions from the floor? Yes. The lady... Yes. Fifth row from the front.
What is the strategic thinking within Nomura at the moment and the sentiment? Are you in growth mode, restructuring mode, crisis mode?
Sorry, I'm answering in Japanese. Yes, the market is extremely volatile, we would like to grow, of course, but we will make cautious investments. As for the underperforming businesses, we will control costs, we will try to reposition it for future growth. As I explained, the business in Japan is undergoing a change of the business model. For wholesale, we have changed the head, we plan to further reinforce our initiatives in wholesale. We are doing what we can and what we should in this tough market environment. When the market recovers, we would like to make sure to capture the opportunities and achieve results.
Thank you very much. Any other questions from the floor? Let me select another question that has been submitted online. Overseas wealth management business, what's your prospect for business opportunities going forward in this area? If any change would be required, what are the changes you need to implement?
This is Okuda speaking. Thank you for the question. Since two years ago, centering around Asia, let's restructure our wealth management business. We've replaced the head, and we have been establishing a new team. Bankers, RMs, have been hired anew and focusing on Asia. Business is expanding, and AUM is also increasing. Already this has been announced, but we're going to open an office in Dubai again, and therefore, initiatives are being strengthened.
What's the driver? I think that's what the question meant.
Of course, human resources is a key, but wealth management is also a systems business. Systems meaning IT system, systems meaning compliance, LCC, or system for the team operations. I think this is a bit of a challenge for Nomura, so that aspect included, we want to reinforce our strength to engage in this business. This is not just about wealth management, but wealth management, asset management, and M&A advisory. For these areas, if there are opportunities, we want to capture such opportunities for growth. Thank you.
This is Kitamura speaking. Let me add some numbers. Two years ago, when we embarked upon the restructuring of this AUM was JPY 6 billion, and it's grown to JPY 12.5 billion. It's in between 13 or 12, depending on the market value, but that's how much the assets have expanded.
We've gone through new hires, as Mr. Okuda said, infrastructure was outdated. During the past couple of years, we have revamped our infrastructure. We have introduced infrastructure that's standard in the sector. RM, who will be newly hired in the months and years ahead, will all able to operate the system from day one. We have high hopes.
This next question is, since Okuda-san's appointment, the number of press releases has increased, so we see a pickup in the group activity. Perhaps this may Yeah. Are there any activities that still have not reflected on your earnings? Are there any focus areas in terms of activities that we should know about?
Yes. The number of press releases, yes, they have increased quite significantly. This is because we are doing all sorts of new things, like in Japan, the alliance with regional banks, in investment banking, we are working with SPARX Group, Nomura Real Estate, search funds. In the U.S., we are working on private debt. In Japan retail, we are changing the way we do business. Internationally, we have set up the digital company, and we have set up several digital assets companies. Yes, we are doing all sorts of things.
We want to continue these new initiatives, and if they don't work, we will stop them and continue that kind of cycle. On the other hand, things that don't show up in press releases, other activities, well, this is kind of related to the engagement we talked about earlier. In the firm, we are talking about purpose and how we plan to change the firm, and we are having those discussions at each layer, including SMDs and the new graduates. Employees are actively engaged in these discussions. Despite the tough environment, how can we make Nomura Group better? I've always been saying from public to private, Nomura is quite strong globally in terms of products and services on the public arena, but private is still...
This applies to alternative products and also engaging with customers one by one and building a long-term relationship. We still are not where we want to be. The question is how to expand the private side of the business, and we are having a lot of discussions internally. This, I think, will lead to new businesses, new strategies, and I am trying to promote that within the firm. In terms of training, just last week, we had the management seminar of Nomura, including international members. The MD level members joined. In Japan, they will be the Butchos or the general managers, so people just right before becoming directors. We had about 30 participants spend six months, and they gather several times a week and do the case studies and do role-playing sessions and discuss with senior management as well.
Just last week, we had the presentation of this management Juku or management sessions, and me, Kitamura-san, attended till late at night and heard the presentations by the global teams. This is something that Nomura hasn't done in the past. Nomura is working together both in Japan and the international members, and the employees are trying to grow themselves as well as a firm. We are finally able to do this kind of initiative in the past few years. This is something that will lead to the next press release, I believe.
It's close to the closing time, the next question will be the final one. First of all, there's a question regarding China. Currently, on global basis and on cross-industrial basis, China risk is receiving attention. What is the stance of Nomura regarding China business?
Thank you. This is Kentaro Okuda speaking. Regarding China business, centering around Hong Kong, Asia, offshore business, we have the head of Asia here, that's one focus point. For onshore business, tilted towards wealth management, since two years ago, we obtained license and have been engaged in such business. Office Shanghai, Beijing, Guangdong, Sichuan, four offices have been opened, 250 + employees are onshore, most of them are locals. That's where we are in terms of our presence in the mainland. As pointed out in the question, there is quite high geopolitical risk.
We are sensitively analyzing the geopolitical risk to engage vigilantly and continue investment carefully and cautiously. If risk or if recovery begins, there's high growth potential in China. Whilst we will keep an eye on risk, although extremely cautiously, we wish to continue our business in China. That is our position.
Thank you very much. We are at about time. With that, I would like to end Nomura's Nomura Holdings session. Thank you very much for joining.